Margo Price's honky tonk heat

jaymiller

Thursday

Apr 26, 2018 at 5:37 AMApr 26, 2018 at 9:36 AM

Margo Price is the latest example of that music industry misnomer, the ‘overnight sensation' who's labored for a decade or more in the trenches. Wednesday night at the Paradise Rock Club in Boston, before a sellout crowd of about 1000 adoring fans, Price and her band The Pricetags delivered the kind of sizzling show that […]

Margo Price is the latest example of that music industry misnomer, the ‘overnight sensation' who's labored for a decade or more in the trenches.

Wednesday night at the Paradise Rock Club in Boston, before a sellout crowd of about 1000 adoring fans, Price and her band The Pricetags delivered the kind of sizzling show that could only make you wonder what took so long for her to become a major star.

Of course the reality is that Price, 35, is an unconventional star by today's country music standards, and doesn't fit into any of the cookie-cutter categories dominating the Nashville charts, so perhaps it's not so strange she was unsigned and playing juke joints just a few years ago. She spent a lot of time waitressing and working odd jobs–installing and removing house siding is a notable line in her bio–to support her muscial dreams.

But the best part is that Price and her husband and frequent writing partner Jeremy Ivey made all that time count, developing their own visceral brand of honky tonk, and a style of songwriting that is pointed and direct. Their music frequently colors outside the lines of conventional country, in the best tradition of honky tonk, roadhouse music.

Unlike her countless ‘bro-country' competitors, Price isn't singing about her pickup truck, days on the beach, or some teenage fling. Her songs can be dealing with serious issues but do it with wit and passion, and the kind of turn-of-phrase that is unforgettable. It's detailed and image-rich songwriting that might be more common in folk music, but it works for Price, and her story-songs resonate.

Record labels shied away from Price for years, until Third Man Records, whose co-owner is iconoclastic rocker Jack White, signed her a couple years ago. Her debut album, “Midwest Farmer's Daughter,” had several songs dealing with the loss of her family's farm in Aledo, Illinois, and its' release in March of 2016 had an immediate impact. Barely a month later she was singing on Saturday Night Live, and on her way to becoming a major national star.

In October of 2017, Price released her sophomore album, “All American Made,” and her growing stature could be reflected in the fact that the record includes a duet with one of her musical heroes, Willie Nelson, on “Learning to Lose.” The new album also moves away from Price's autobiographical tunes, tackling more topical issues, but doing so in the storytelling format she excels in.

Wednesday night's 18-song, one-hour, forty-minute show in Boston included songs from both of Price's albums, as well as some tasty covers. The Pricetags include Dillon Napier on drums, Kevin Black on bass, Luke Schneider on pedal steel, Micah Hulscher on keyboards, and Jamie Davis on guitar. Ivey joined the band on guitar and harmonica on probably two-thirds of the tunes.

Before they set out to conquer country music, Price and Ivey had fronted a soul-rock band called Buffalo Clover, and it was easy to see plenty of soul influence in her music and delivery last night. But that was not the only way they blended styles, and there were several songs where fans might feel Price's music had as much in common with the Marshall Tucker Band as it does with Loretta Lynn (to whom she's been compared vocally). But just when you were settling on that Southern rock description, a tune like “A Little Pain” would feature the kind of push-and-pull rhythmic figure that suggested indie rock, or “Do Right By Me” would shift into the kind of electric piano solo that evoked jazz-funk. Country purists might expect boundaries, but having no stylistic boundaries is what makes Price and her band so exciting.

“Don't Say It” opened the night with a fiery honk tonk rocker, about a woman tired of her man's disappointing her, while “Tennessee Song” took a little softer approach, in a wistful look at things possibly left behind in that state. Guy Clark's “new Cut Road” was the first cover, and a frenetically paced country-rocker, about a family leaving Kentucky, that had Price striding the stage in her one-piece magenta pant suit.

Music devotees could get a hint of Price's inspirations during “Wild Women,” which sounded like it could've come straight from The Byrds' iconic “Sweetheart of the Rodeo” record, circa 1968. But her sardonic look at people playing at being country, “Cocaine Cowboys,” took matters in a different direction. After singing the verses to the torrid country-rocker, Price strolled back to the second drum set at stage left, sat down and began to play. The band ramped up the rhythm, with kinetic solos from the keyboards, pedal steel, and both guitarists, culminating in a blistering climax guided by Napier's drums. Price wasn't quite the potent drummer he was, but she kept the beat going and provided a sort of rhythm drummer to his leads, as the song stretched out past ten minutes.

For a sharp contrast after that jam, Price sang “All American Made” solo, while playing piano herself, and its lines about working hard and never seeming to get ahead, where, to paraphrase, all your hopes and dreams and frustrations are “all American made” rang out over the hushed throng. Price began “Heart of America,” which is kind of a traveling commentary on the nation, as a duet with Ivey, but the band gradually came on stage and turned it from that guitar duet into a full blown rocking two-step. A delightfully twangy take on Tom Petty's “Mary Jane's Last Dance” was another treat.

That female who won't take any more guff was at the center of “Four Years of Chances,” delivered as a rocking march. “My Weakness” was a bright and joyful country rocker. Price's song most directly tied to her family losing their farm, “Hands of Time” came across as a simmering, slow shuffle beflore resolving into big soulful choruses that made it obvious who much genuine feeling it evoked. The finger-popping rocker “This Town Gets Around” was great fun, as Price viewed Nashville with her rapier wit. “Paper Cowboy began as another country-rocker and shifted into another Price-on-drums jam session, to end the regular set.

For her encores, Price (now in a shimmering black mini skirt and matching black cowboy hat) did a medley of her own “I Put a Hurt on the Bottle” with Merle Haggard's classic “Tonight I'll Just Stay Here and Drink” and Willie Nelson's “Whiskey River,” and there wasn't a fan in the house who'd have denied the singer embodied ‘outlaw country' as well as they did. The night ended with Price's rendition of “Proud Mary,” and if it hewed pretty closely to the Tina Turner version, with its slow, country-soul start, building up to an impossibly fiery, rockin' finish, her obvious relish at singing it and visiting every corner of the stage made it impossible not to be carried away.